


Make It Right To the One I Love

by ryry_peaches



Series: Missing Conversations From the Creek [5]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s06e08 The Presidential Suite, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23010889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryry_peaches/pseuds/ryry_peaches
Summary: David and Patrick talk it out.-David looks at a weird, tiny droplet stain on Patrick's couch — wine? olive oil? — and nods, trying not to seem mullish.  He knows that he screwed up and he wants to take it back, but he can't, and this is — they've talked, alot,about David's inability to cooperate, and Patrick really does have a superhuman level of patience with David's compulsions and needs.  Right up until they start to hurt other people — that's the general cutoff of acceptable behavior, and David crossed the line. Big time.  With the person in his life he least wants to hurt.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Missing Conversations From the Creek [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604422
Comments: 11
Kudos: 199





	Make It Right To the One I Love

**Author's Note:**

> This one isn't my best work. I have the hardest time getting these two to fight - they just want to hug and kiss and make up all the time, and I already reworked it to keep the forgiveness from coming even sooner.
> 
> Title of course from Halsey's Still Learning, aka the most David song in the world.

Patrick shuts the door behind Stevie and turns sharply, his jaw set. "David, we really need to talk."

"I know," David says with a nervous laugh. "A T-shirt in our engagement photos?" He swirls his hand toward Patrick's general torso area.

_"David."_

"Okay, not the time for jokes." David draws his bottom lip through his teeth. "I know. Why don't you sit down, and I'll pour us a drink, and we can…talk." He winces.

Patrick keeps his glare steady on David as he walks to the couch and sits, straight and tense.

David casts him nervous glances as he pours wine, and he carries it over as slowly as he can. He holds a glass out to Patrick, who accepts it in stony silence, and then takes a seat beside him.

"Okay," David begins, and he's pleased to note that his voice is barely trembling. "I messed up, and I'm sorry."

Patrick relaxes so slightly that someone who didn't know him well might not notice; his jaw rounds out, and his shoulders drop. He takes a sip of wine and stares David down.

"…I shouldn't have pushed you to tan," David continues, once it's clear that Patrick isn't going to let him off the hook even a little. "I shouldn't have put expectations on you like that. I think today was a really ugly bridezilla moment for me, and I was super unfair to you." He twists his mouth around the discomfort of the apology — he can freely admit that he's never been one to hold himself accountable, before Patrick started holding his hand and showing him how, and it still settles weirdly in him. He gulps his wine nervously, sure that it's Patrick's turn now to say something.

"I'm not gonna lie, I'm relieved to hear you say that, David," Patrick says finally. He's looking David right in the eyes in the way that makes David feel like he's looking down the barrel of a .45. "You've been steamrolling over me, and it doesn't feel great."

"I know," David says, and maybe he's feeling a tinge desperate. He flutters his hand in Patrick's direction. "I don't want to do that."

Patrick takes another sip of his wine, and David polishes his glass off, begging it for courage. "What I think we need to do," Patrick says after a moment, "is sit down and plan out a little more of the wedding together, get a game plan going so that this kind of thing doesn't happen again."

David looks at a weird, tiny droplet stain on Patrick's couch — wine? olive oil? — and nods, trying not to seem mullish. He knows that he screwed up and he wants to take it back, but he can't, and this is — they've talked, a _lot,_ about David's inability to cooperate, and Patrick really does have a superhuman level of patience with David's compulsions and needs. Right up until they start to hurt other people — that's the general cutoff of acceptable behavior, and David crossed the line. Big time. With the person in his life he least wants to hurt.

Patrick is quietly waiting for a response, and David feels moved in a way he occasionally does to do something nice at an inopportune time. "I think we should invite more of your family," he says in a rush of air.

Patrick looks surprised, and — something else, something not entirely pleased. "David, I — you can't just do that for me and expect it to fix everything." Not quite disappointed, but something near there.

"I'm not!" That comes out entirely too sharply, defensively. He takes a breath and tries again. "There's still a lot that we need to talk about, but this is your wedding too, and you've been letting me run the show and I'm grateful, and I think ultimately it's the right decision for me to control the aesthetic side of things because —"

"David."

"Right, not the point!" He waves a hand around his face. "I want everyone there who you want to be there. Whoever you want. Second cousins and great-uncles and…everyone." He twists his mouth, trying not to go soft because he thought his glass of pinot would fortify him but that was a miscalculation, and the look on Patrick's face is inches from making him cry.

"You don't have to do that, David." Patrick sets his glass down and shifts, leaning towards David, eyes intent.

"Yes, I do. You've been giving me everything I want, even when it makes you miserable, and I haven't been giving you…anything." He doesn't look right into Patrick's eyes, focusing instead on his brows, which are even paler compared to the tan than they are normally. "And from now on, I'm going to listen when you say no to wedding stuff."

Patrick raises one invisible brow. "Don't make promises you can't keep," he says, but his tone is fifteen percent warmer than it was when they started talking. David counts it as a win. (A win for team David-and-Patrick. A win for getting them back on the same page.)

"I am going to make a concentrated effort to listen when you say no to wedding stuff," David amends. "And you're right, we do need to sit down and make a plan, work through some of this ahead of time. But I really think part of that should be expanding the guest list — if that's still what you want, of course." He bites his lip.

Patrick reaches forward and rubs David's shoulder for a second, a quick, soft little circle. "I want my family to be there, David," he says softly, and if he seems — weary? defeated? — David doesn't say anything. "I want everyone I care about to be there when I marry you, but I don't want this to become a pattern of us giving in to each other on things we don't want."

"It's not that I don't want them there," David says, and when Patrick scoffs it stings a bit, or a lot, but it's fair. "I do! I've been selfish." He twists his mouth and mashes his cheek into his own shoulder, hiding from his guilt. The realization is suffocating. "I…felt like it would cut into our budget too much if we were helping that many people with accommodations and travel." God, he really did feel that way, is the wretched part. Does feel that way, a little. "Fuck," he moans. "I've been a terrible fiance."

"No, you haven't," Patrick says, artificially tan forehead crinkling.

"No, stop, I didn't say that to like, make you comfort me and forget the argument. It's true." He twists on the couch, pulling one leg up under himself, to face Patrick head-on, and he rests just his fingertips on Patrick's shoulders. Patrick doesn't shake him off. "I've been more focused on the wedding than on the man I'm marrying." He forces himself to look Patrick in the eye now; Patrick's eyes are so dark that it's hard to see his pupils. David has no idea what he's thinking, which is scarier than he'd ever admit, but he steels himself, and if there's an increasing wet pressure around his eyes, he can ignore it. "I am so grateful that you'll hold me accountable, but you shouldn't have to."

"I know," Patrick says, and that's — what is that?

"Okay," David says, retracting his hand and crossing his arms over his chest defensively. "Then why are you doing it?" He cringes, not ready for an answer.

"David," Patrick says, softening a little more. "It's just…I knew, when I bought _four_ rings, and knelt with a sock full of blood at the top of a mountain, and asked you to marry me, that you were going to be controlling and a little crazy about the wedding."

"Okay," David says again, tucking his chin, and tries not to be embarrassed by the crack in his voice. "I want to argue with you, but obviously that was a fair assessment."

"Oh, it really is," Patrick assures him through a huff that quickly evolves into a sigh. "David, I hate being mad at you." He frowns just like he smiles — an actual turning of his mouth, like a cartoon character. David hadn't known, before Patrick, that people could actually do that.

"I hate giving you _reasons_ to be mad at me," David says, leaning into Patrick and letting himself rub a hand up his arm. "I'm just so…so caught up in the things that I've wanted for my whole life, and none of it — it's not that it doesn't matter." He draws his other hand up to his hair, resisting the urge to make a fist in it. He's making a mess of explaining himself. "But my reasons have changed, and I haven't dealt with that, I've just kept barrelling along and then I barrelled right over you." He flourishes his hand to demonstrate how helpless he feels.

Patrick, worryingly, smiles. Or, he stops frowning — his mouth returns to whatever it does when he's not emoting, and his brow smooths. "David," he says, then presses his lips together like he's holding something back. "I…" He pauses, considers something. "Am so happy I'm marrying you."

"Never too late to back out," David says with a nervous titter, and then wishes that he could swallow his own tongue. Nothing like retreating into the comfort of guilt and self-pity to make a case for how reasonable you are.

Patrick smiles for real, although it's fairly shaky. "David," he says so softly that it makes David feel fucking naked, "that's not funny."

"I know," David says, sinking as hard as he can into the couch, wondering if he can telepathically convince the upholstery to split apart and swallow him up.

"David. Look at me," Patrick says in his best _do-as-I-say_ voice, and David looks at him, looks at his big round eyes and says nothing. Patrick puts a hand on his knee, which honestly reminds David of his dad, but it's Patrick, and he lets him do it. "I am not always going to be actively, consciously happy with you. We are going to piss each other off sometimes. But I will _always_ want to be with you. I can promise you that, even if I'm mad or I need time, I will always be long-term happy with you, right here by my side."

"Okay," David says, and his face is definitely doing something embarrassing, so he bites down on both lips. He wants so badly to look away from Patrick, from his wide-open face that's never ashamed to say honest things, but he doesn't because Patrick told him to look and he can do that, at least.

"And I'm going to be so happy with you, Patrick, love of my life," Patrick says in the slightly-pitched tone he uses to put words directly into David's mouth, and it works — David relaxes into rolling his eyes. Patrick smiles at him for real, full of shit and utterly beguiling.

"Patrick." David puts his hand over Patrick's. "I am going to be so, so happy with you." He leans in, closing his eyes, and his whole face heats up, his ears and neck as well, as he says, right into Patrick's ear, "Love of my life."

"I mean, I am definitely going to get mad at you in the future," Patrick says, and he puts a hand on the back of David's neck to keep him there. "And you'll probably get mad at me, and I think we can always make up just like this." And then he dips his head and nips at the side of David's throat, and David crushes his nose against Patrick's cheek and lets himself laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> What can I say? I wanted Patrick to really speak his mind. I wanted them to fight. These stupid lovey-dovey fiances refused.
> 
> Tumbl me @fourgetregret for personal anecdotes and general nonsense, and @loveburnsbrighter for Schitt. BTW, my askbox is open there now! Feel free to drop me a line anytime :-)


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